For May I made over $8000 and surpassed my super stretch goal and 17% growth on last month! (Making $8117.66 to be exact!) My goal was $7500, a stretch goal of $7750 and super stretch goal of $8000.

That is mind blowing.

— 73% of the income was from own products + memberships.
— 100% of those products + memberships was under $100.
— 22% of those products + memberships was between $10-97.
— meaning 78% of those products + memberships was $10 or less!

At the bottom of this report, I share what has worked well for me recently and what hasn’t.

For regular readers of income reports, scroll down to the report. Here are all my income reports.

WHY DO I SHARE MY INCOME REPORTS?

I follow several income reports like Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, Rose Atwater from Rose Bakes, Pinch of Yum, House of Brazen and Making Sense of Cents and there is something about numbers that is sexy, motivational, inspiring and lets me dream bigger. Is it just me?

I read Rose Bakes 2015 income report where she made nearly $37,000 USD for the year from blogging. Well, that knocked my socks off. I showed my boyfriend and talked about it and read and researched. I was hugely inspired.

Later I even had a business mentoring session with Rose and now, a year later, I am so incredibly lucky to call Rose a friend and mentor.

But that feeling of inspiration, motivation and that it is soooo hugely possible this business dream …. Well, I want to share that with others.

BLOGGING IS NOT THE WAY TO FAST MONEY.

At all. We all hear about the $100k launch and whatever else, but I gotta wonder is that real? And how much of that was spent on Facebook advertising?

For me, I’m not going to talk about those pie-high-in-the-sky numbers. Because launches make me want to vomit in my mouth a little bit. And I don’t do webinars. I’m going to talk about the hard work and real numbers that made it possible for me to quit my full-time job.

Because, yes, I worked full time while building up this blog and business.

• August 2014 – $191
• December 2014 – $415
• July 2015 – $732
• November 2015 – $1404
• February 2016 – $1593

It has been hard work. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

And it wasn’t a smooth uphill slope. Some months I made $0 minus expenses. A couple of months I made up to $2000-$6000, but those were few and far between.

Gee, if I knew way back then what I now know!

And now? Now I have quit my full-time job. Now I work less than 30 hours per week. Now I have replaced my full-time income and in April 2017 I retired my boyfriend! Because that is my dream and big WHY. And you are going to need to hold on for dear life while on this ride.

Imagine a rocket ship or roller coaster. Which do you think the journey or blogging is going to be? A rocket ship that is a skyrocketing success story with little to no work. Like winning the lottery.

Or a roller coaster, like everything else you have experienced in life? (Hint: it is a roller coaster of a ride because it is life.)

This post contains affiliate links.

MAY 2017 INCOME & TRAFFIC REPORT

Own Products

• Recurring monthly memberships – $2128 (How I Have Nearly 300 Membership Site Members)
• 1-year membership deal – $348
• Recipe Book = $2510 (How I made $2430 in sales from a random $10 PDF product in 2 weeks)
• eCourse – $291
• Workshops – $550.80
• Cupcake Business in a Box eBook Bundle – $147

One-to-one Mentoring & Consulting

• Consulting/Mentoring clients – $50

Ad Revenue

• MediaVine – $542.55
• AdSense – $125.04

Affiliates

• ShareASale – $975.02 (mostly from Craftsy, see below **)
• ConvertKit – $204.27 (ConvertKit demo & review)
• WAQA Studios – $134.90 (Get a 1 Week WordPress Website)
• Siteground – $87 (Bluehost suck. Why I Moved to Siteground.)
• Sweet Sticks – $30.08

Total income = $8133.66 (increase of 17%!) Memberships 26% of total incomes. Rest of own products 53% of total income. (I separated 1-year membership to products for this breakdown). One-to-one less than 1% total income. Ad revenue 8% of total income. Affiliate income 12% of total income.

** The Shareasale income includes income from Craftsy, Tailwind, PicMonkey. Join Shareasale HERE!

EXPENSES APRIL 2017

• VA – $298.50
• Libsyn – $20.72 (podcast hosting)
• MemberMouse – $55.54 (membership site for Cake Business School & Blog Business School)
• Siteground – $110
• Fees – $365.86 (PayPal and bank fees)
• SEO Audit with Kate Toon – $271.70 (see below for more info)
• Craftsy – $26.47 (to review a class)
• iTunes – $7.98
• ConvertKit – $40.55 (for this website. For Angel Foods website I pay yearly as I pay for 10 months and get 2 free).

Total Expenses = $1197.32

I have paid for a years’ worth of ConvertKit for Angel Foods (email service provider), instead of paying monthly, I bought a year and got 2 months free which is $141.93 per month. See ConvertKit demo here.

Tailwind (Pinterest pinning app) I did the same and bought a years’ worth which averages the cost at $10.93 per month. See Tailwind demo here.

Note – from my gross income I pay myself and my boyfriend a wage, pay myself superannuation and pay a mortgage.

Related article: Does Setting Income Goals Really Work?

 

MAY 2017 TRAFFIC REPORT

Note – over 98% of my income comes from www.angelfoods.net which is shown above.

I thought it would be an idea to start sharing this blog traffic, as well. It is kind of funny that I haven’t started this earlier, as that was always the intention. Whoops!

HOW I PLAN TO REACH MY INCOME GOALS

Ah, the fun bit! I have set an income goal of $8000 for June. (My stretch goal is $8750 and super stretch is $9000. And yes, I always set stretch and super stretch goals. Why? Because it teaches myself to ask for bigger and also work for bigger. Because it really is possible!)

So, when I plan how much I want to reach my income goals, I start with what I know that I will 99% make this month.

• Shareasale – $370
• Siteground – $100
• Ad revenue – $550
• Memberships – $2200+
• 1-year membership – $3000
• Book + products – $500
• Workshops – $500
• ConvertKit – $200

Equals = $7420.

That leaves $1300 to reach my goal. Now, I stretch myself on what else I can create & sell this month:

• A 12-month mentoring session
• 14 x one-to-one mentoring + consulting sessions

 

WHAT HAS WORKED WELL FOR ME RECENTLY? WHAT HASN’T?

Working well:

• I just signed up for a paid mastermind that is $750 p/m for 6 months. I am excited and nervous and can’t wait!
• I had over 1300 downloads on the Angel Foods Show podcast last month. I started adding interviews into the mix and turns out people are loving it!
• Hottie boyfriend working in the business still is 100 out of 10.
• I made $2430 in sales on a $10 PDF product with ZERO launches, no prep, NO sales page (it isn’t on my website at all) and didn’t email it out, in the last 2 weeks! Taking down the barriers between you and people giving you money. I share exactly how I did that here.
• End of financial year advice from the accountant and gauging the financial position of the business and personal. I did a Facebook live about what I learned in the Sweet Success Mastermind group here.
• SEO audit with Kate Toon. I hadn’t done this in 2+ years and specifically had questions about duplicate content (someone stealing my content and publishing on their website). To be honest, I haven’t had time to fully digest our session + notes + research more + action and will be doing that this morning. I will share what I learned after that 🙂

Not working well:

• Guest bloggers. I have flipped this from working to not working. It is so time-consuming! But, to be fair I am feeling overwhelmed because of a huge workload, at the moment, which will change. I just have a few big projects on my table.
• My Angel Foods website is starting to get outdated. It was built in 2014 and I love it and it is beautiful. But technology changes and it is getting slower and needs more of a journey or path for people to see all the amazing content that has been published. I am creating new opt-ins and automated sequences this month which feels like a BIG project. I’ll do this work-around for the time being and in the near future will be doing a complete website rebuild.
• It’s holiday time. I haven’t had a holiday or trip since April and while hottie boyfriend went away 2 weeks ago with his uncle, I feel like I’m due for some time out 🙂